Stone County Sheriff's Office Drug take back program Saturday April 30th 2011 at Walmart Parking lot

Are you tired of your medicine cabinet being cluttered with old, halfway full pill bottles you no longer need? Is yourbathroom drawer overflowing with expired medications? Do you want to properly dispose of your old drugs, but don't know what to do with them? If so, never fear...

On Saturday, April 30, Arkansas will participate in a nationwide prescription drug take-back event, and you will be able bring all your expired or unwanted pills to one of the many collection sites currently planned across the state.

Federal, state, or local law enforcement officers will be on hand at each site to ensure that all pills are collected and destroyed in a safe, legal, and environmentally friendly manner.

By returning your unwanted or expired medications to collection sites on April 30, you help:

Remove a potential source of prescription drugs from those who might otherwise try to steal, abuse, or sell them

Keep them from being stolen straight from your own medicine cabinets by children, grandchildren, and their friends

Protect small children from accidentally ingesting prescription drugs

In 2008 alone, parents across the US made over 100,000 trips to emergency rooms after their children younger than age 5 had accidentally swallowed pills

Prevent these drugs from ever being flushed and polluting water systems or being placed in landfills and contaminating groundwater

This initiative is being sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Office of the Drug Director Fran Flener, the Office of Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern and Western District of Arkansas, the Arkansas State Police, the Arkansas Sheriffs Association, the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police, the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy, Arkansas Rotary Clubs statewide, and over thirty more federal, state, and local agencies, law enforcement agencies, prevention coalitions, businesses, media organizations, and community organizations.